


when the lights go out

by rejects



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M, ashton is a bit of an asshole but meh, basically i wanted to write and this happened, hints of smut but nothing too majorly detailed!!, i live n breathe for pining luke, somewhat angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1933035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rejects/pseuds/rejects
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke doesn't exactly plan on losing his virginity that night, but it happens anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the lights go out

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first time posting any of my writing anywhere and i'm kinda shitting it (apologies)  
> there's probably a million little bits i could tweak and edit in this but i've already had it waiting for ages already so i'm just gonna go for it !!  
> i hope you enjoy it!!

Luke doesn’t exactly plan on losing his virginity that night, but it happens anyway. Michael’s been practically pouring shots down his throat for the past hour, because he’s “Only eighteen once!” and Luke finds it all pretty ridiculous at first, but it seems to make Michael happy so he plays along with it.

So when he feels hands pressing against his narrow hips and a warm breath against his earlobe, pushing the stranger away isn’t something his mind registers doing. Michael’s long gone by this point, probably off somewhere sucking someone off in the backseat of his car or passed out over a game of Flappy Bird. So Luke lets the person touch him, finger nails harsh as they creep up the back of his shirt but he doesn’t care. For the first time in his entire eighteen years of existence, Luke Hemmings is living his life without a care. 

And he continues not caring as the person weaves him through crowds of people, tugs him inside the club bathroom and locks the door. It’s only as the dimly lit fluorescent lights above them flicker into life that he notices that the person is actually a guy and well. Luke supposes he probably should have guessed that from the firm hands that had wrapped around his own, but in his defense his brain was far too buzzed to register such information. 

He lets the boy take him against the sink—it’s rough and it hurts like hell but Luke loves every second of it. He loves looking up in the mirror to watch how the boy’s eyebrows knit closely together with each thrust and the rise and fall of his chest as he chases after his orgasm. The pain is worth being able to see such a pretty sight up close. 

What’s not so pretty is being left in the bathroom alone with his (loveless) love bites and skin that still burns from the boy’s touch. Before he leaves, the guy says “You better not mention this to anyone,” Which Luke thinks is weird because who is he supposed to tell? He didn’t even get the boy’s name. He leaves the room as if he’s simply just taken a piss, and at a loss of other words, that’s exactly what Luke feels like—Like this sandy-haired boy has just pissed all over his heart. Luke kind of wants to laugh and cry at the same time, which is ridiculous because they just fucked in a public toilet for god’s sake, of course he wasn’t going to stay to hold his hand afterwards. 

Once he’s picked himself off the floor he goes to find Michael and they walk home. If Michael notices his slight limp as he walks, he doesn't say anything. 

Luke doesn’t expect to see the boy again after that, but as he shuffles his way through the corridors at college that following Monday he can’t help but feel the heat of a burning gaze. Luke hides his hands within the sleeves of his sweater as he tries to subtly scan the room for the source of his discomfort when his eyes settle on him. He has his hair pushed back behind a bandana, but Luke could notice those curls anywhere. After all, he swears he still has traces of the boy written into his skin from that night that he just can’t ignore—His kisses etched into the plane of his back and hushed words inked around his thighs like secret tattoos. He supposes it would be awkward to walk over to greet him, especially seeing as he currently has a very pretty girl dangling from his arm, so he just tilts the corner of his mouth up in what he hopes looks like a casual recognition before he carries along on his walk down the corridor. He heart is beating so quickly he thinks he can hear it thumping against his rib cage with every step.

He doesn’t see Ashton for a while after that, which Luke supposes he should be relieved about. Ashton hadn’t looked too happy to see him last time they’d made eye contact, but Ashton had also been watching him so that had to mean something, right? Luke doesn’t know, but what he does know is that he’s hungry as hell. 

He’s waiting at the college entrance for Michael, who was supposed to have met him here over fifteen minutes ago. Luke would be mad but he knows Michael, so he knows that the boy is as reliable as his ever-changing bleached hair. 

He’s just standing there, hands tucked inside his pockets as he shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot before he notices a figure approaching him. It’s like a scene from a cliché movie, the sun shining directly on the boy as he walks towards him. Luke can’t quite tell where the sun rays end and the boy starts, so he assumes that maybe they’re one and the same.  
“Have you got somewhere to be?” He says when he gets closer, and Luke has to lift a hand to shade his eyes to look at him properly. His eyes focus instantly on light curls and dark eyes that make him smile nervously.

He thinks about Michael, mouth opening and closing before he finally clamps his lips together and shakes his head. The boy doesn’t smile, just walks past Luke to the gates. Luke watches in confusion until he turns back to look at him with a roll of his eyes,  
“Are you coming or not?” He asks, rather moodily for Luke’s liking. He follows anyway.

This time they do it in the back seat of Ashton’s expensive looking car, the leather sticking to their sweaty bodies as Luke pants and writhes beneath him. Luke learns his name when Ashton’s hovering over him, and Luke’s just moaning incoherent words. The boy leans down and whispers “Ashton,” in his ear, and then Luke is abusing Ashton’s name between his lips just because he can. He twists his head to the side to allow Ashton more access to his neck and his eyes meet a small keychain dangling from his rear-view mirror. It’s a photo of Ashton and the same girl he’d seen a few days ago, hands entwined and smiling happily. Luke feels slightly guilty, but he also feels sort of smug as he brings Ashton to his orgasm. 

Ashton kicks him out of his car before he’s even got his jeans buttoned up, fisting the material of Luke’s shirt between his fingers. He supposes he’s supposed to find it threatening, but Luke can’t help but find it somewhat endearing. He drinks in the danger and distantly feels it burning his heart.  
“Tell anyone about this and I swear,” He breathes amber eyes dark as he steps away and starts on his way back to school. Luke needs a moment to catch his breath before he follows suit.

And that’s the way it goes for them. Ashton will give him that look, and Luke knows exactly what he wants. It’s the only thing he understands about Ashton, and he tries not to want more but he can’t help it. He wants to understand this sad eyed boy who always seems so angry at the world. 

Sometimes he thinks he’s finally beginning to crack Ashton open, but just as quickly as he opens up Ashton closes down again, and it seems like a losing battle to Luke. They’ve been sleeping together for over a month, yet Luke still doesn’t know his favourite bands or whether he talks in his sleep. But maybe that’s not so unusual, seeing as all Luke is to Ashton is someone to fuck when his girlfriend isn’t enough to please him. And the thing is, Luke feels like he should feel bad about sleeping around with Ashton when he knows he’s with someone but Ashton seems to make him blow all of his morals out of the window. 

The first time Ashton actually speaks to him, properly speaks to him, is when he’s dragged him inside a stranger’s bedroom at a distant friend’s party. Ashton pins Luke’s hips to the single bed, breaths rugged as he grinds against him lightly and Luke’s just about getting into the right mind set when Ashton suddenly stops. Luke’s about to make a noise of complaint when Ashton speaks up,  
“Do you ever feel so empty that you can’t remember what it felt like to be whole?”

It’s the first time Luke has seen Ashton look remotely vulnerable, or show any other emotion other than lust for that matter. His eyes look scared and his voice is small and Luke would be willing to forget about how turned on he is right now if it meant he could hold Ashton and show him what it feels like to be whole, to give Ashton a part of himself so he could be his entire self. 

But the moment ends just as quickly as it comes, and Ashton’s lips are reattaching themselves onto his neck and Luke has missed his opportunity. 

After they’ve finished, tangled in bed sheets with a glint of sweat to their skin, Luke moves to clamber out of the bed like he usually does when Ashton grabs onto his bicep. He turns, raising an eyebrow.  
“Stay,”  
The sound is so quiet that to anybody else it would be as if Ashton hadn’t spoken, but recently Luke has become so attentive to everything relating to the boy that he could probably notice a delayed intake of breath. He climbs back in bed, pulls the thin sheet back over their bodies and turns to look at Ashton. He doesn’t know what to do; Ashton has never let him this close before and sure, Luke has pictured this moment several times in his head but he’d never pictured it actually happening. 

Ashton shuffles slightly, and Luke notices that he’s probably more out of his comfort zone than he is right now. He lifts his arm invitingly; careful with his movements because he’s scared that if he moves too quickly Ashton will run. But he doesn’t, he just watches Luke for a moment before hesitantly letting his head rest against his chest and that’s—well.  
They lie like that for a while, the party carrying on without them downstairs but the only beats Luke’s concentrating on is the thump of Ashton’s heart against his palm as he holds him. He can feel Ashton’s body relax as the minutes pass, his soft mutters of “I need you more than you could ever know” becoming increasingly inaudible until the next time he looks down he’s met with droopy eyes and slightly pouted lips.  
“I’m sorry,” is the last thing Ashton says, and he drifts to sleep before Luke can ask him what for. 

(Luke finds out when he opens his eyes to an empty bed and an unimpressed girl in the doorway. He quickly pulls on his shirt and jeans, covering the lovebites on the insides of his thighs that hold a thousand empty promises and tires his hardest to ignore them as they burn his skin for attention)

Luke feels like he should avoid Ashton after that, and he really does try his best to but this is Ashton. The boy may appear to look like the sun, but he’s much more like the moon—Dark with a magnetic field that Luke cannot help but be pulled into. 

Their relationship is toxic, Luke knows that but he can’t stay back. He needs to feel the pressure of Ashton’s fingers against his skin; he needs the memory when he’s lonely and sad at night with nothing but an empty bed that seems too large now that he knows what it’s like to have a certain curly haired boy beside him. He needs to hear the praises whispered in his ear because nobody else’s words have any effect on Luke, nobody else’s words linger in his memory in a way that is both comforting and haunting at the same time. 

Things seem to be looking up for him and Ashton, until everything goes to shit.

It’s another party of another person he doesn’t know, and Luke has drunk so much that he feels like he might burst at any moment. It feels so good to have the alcohol pumping through his veins again; he can concentrate on the thrum of it flowing through his body instead of the dull ache in his chest. 

Luke didn’t know that Ashton was going to be here, but when his eyes set on him he’s suddenly all Luke sees. His eyes snap and focus on Ashton, blurring out the rest of the room until all he can see is Ashton’s hands where they dance across skin that isn’t his and his lips where they mark-up another’s neck. Luke raises a hand to his own purple mark and feels excruciatingly dirty. He feels used, worn, unwanted— _unneeded._

He stands there, the party going on around him until he sees them pull away from each other. 

Ashton looks up at him; Luke still has his fingers curved around his bruised neck.

Ashton kisses the girl then, and Luke realizes that Ashton isn’t the sun or the moon—He’s a black hole that is swallowing up his entire universe like it never meant a thing.

“Come on, Luke. What’s wrong with you?” Michael says, throwing a stray Cheeto in Luke’s general direction. Luke just sighs and plucks it from where it’s landed between his legs, shoving it in his mouth and smirking slightly at the disgusted expression Michael pulls, as if he hasn’t done worse.  
“Nothing, just thinking.” Luke replies, leaning over to steal another handful of Cheetos from Michael who looks less than pleased at the crime committed against him.  
“You’ve been ‘just thinking’ for two and a half weeks now,” Michael says pointedly, kicking Luke’s shin, “Now tell.”

Luke sighs. He feels bad hiding things from Michael, but he would feel worse going against what Ashton had asked him to do which felt ridiculous, because Ashton had let him down so many times yet Luke still lived in fear of doing the same to him. He hated how attached he’d grown to him, how much he cared when Ashton clearly cared very little in return. He almost envies Michael, because he’s met a guy who treasures him for what he is and Luke still remains alone. It’s a bitter thought, but seeing Michael and Calum lazing around the apartment all day just reminds Luke of how alone he really is.

Luke just shook his head, stuffing his mouth full for an excuse not to talk. He expects Michael to roll his eyes, maybe pinch him a couple of times before they settle back and carry on watching the movie but Michael just watches him with an unreadable expression.  
“Look, Luke. You know I’m not one for being serious but I’m really fucking concerned for you,” He says, which is really unusual for Michael because Michael never expresses true sentimental emotion without needing to, “I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that look and nobody is worth your pain, Luke. Just remember that.”

Luke stares at him blankly for a moment and nods slightly. He knows that what he has with Ashton is a mess. Luke’s just selfishly taking whatever Ashton will give him, and Ashton is stringing him along to fill whatever emptiness he feels inside and it shouldn’t feel right but it does. As much as it hurts Luke, he loves it too. He loves the attention; he loves the small parts of Ashton that the boy thinks he hides from Luke. He loves catching the fond glances and he loves the soft touches that Ashton lets slip every once in a while. He’s addicted to Ashton like a drug, he loves the high even though it’s slowly driving him insane. Luke isn’t sure how much more he can take before he loses his mind completely.

So he decides to do something about it. Michael doesn’t question him when he comes up with some shitty excuse to leave, just smiles knowingly and throws one last Cheeto at his back as he leaves.

Luke doesn’t know what he’s doing, he hasn’t planned this out but he knows he needs to speak to Ashton. He’s tired of always second-guessing; he needs to know what he’s gotten himself involved with even if it hurts. Pain relating with Ashton has become a secondary emotion by now anyway.

He pulls up outside the house and parks his car behind Ashton’s. He fixes his hair a few times and grasps at the steering wheel, trying to figure out what he wants to say before he heads up there. 

His mind is unreadable though, so he eventually just gives up and hopes for the best. He ambles up the driveway, hands shaking slightly as he knocks on the door. Nobody answers for a long time, and Luke’s just stood there with too many thoughts buzzing around his head and a heart that is seemingly trying to break through his ribs with each beat.  
The door swings open then, revealing a dishevelled looking Ashton. He looks at him for a moment, worrying his lip ring between his teeth and he thinks realization settles behind Ashton’s eyes.  
“You’re a fucking coward,” Luke blurts out, arms loose by his side but he’s shaking. Ashton eyes are blown wide with shock but Luke isn’t stopping now, couldn’t if he tried,  
“You’re a goddamn coward, and I’m the idiot who keeps coming back to you because I don’t know where else to go. I can’t get you out of my mind, Ashton. I try but you’re everywhere and it isn’t fair. You’re all over my skin and my lips and I can’t get rid of you, and I don’t know how you expect me to be able to carry on like this but I can’t. I need more than this, and I need you to either tell me that you want the same or to fuck off because I can’t do it alone. I can’t walk away until you tell me to.”

He takes in a deep breath, eyes set on the ground and he’s so sure that Ashton is going to slam the door in his face and shatter his heart to pieces in the process.  
Ashton just stares at him before letting out a shaky breath, “Shit.”

Ashton ends up inviting Luke inside, and Luke can tell from the way he digs his fingernails into his palms that he’s nervous. 

Ashton leads him to the kitchen where he perches himself on the counter top before looking over at where Luke stands awkwardly in the door way. He smiles shakily at him, which puts Luke at ease slightly.  
“I want you, Luke.” Ashton starts suddenly, making Luke’s eyes widen slightly. He’s heard Ashton say it before when heavily influenced by lust, but the tone in his voice this time is different. It’s gentle, more certain, “I tried my hardest not to, tried to treat you like complete shit to make myself feel like I had power over my own feelings but I don’t. I can never stay too long around you because what I feel for you frightens me, and I thought I was scared because of you for the longest time and that you were to blame, but I’m scared of myself. You’re right, I am a coward and I’m sorry. I don’t know how to give you what you want; I don’t know if I can but fuck do I want to.”

Luke speechlessly looks at him then, crossing his arms over his chest as he tries to bite back a smile,  
“We can try, we can always try to figure this out.”  
Ashton smiles then and nods.

They spend a long time in the kitchen, Ashton’s thighs locked around Luke’s hips as they speak. Ashton tells him about his parents; how he hates a man he’s never even met. He tells Luke how all he wants to do is make those around him happy, he doesn’t want people to see him for the fuck up he sees himself as. Luke wants to tell him that he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, his body isn’t the result of a mistake because such perfect creations cannot simply be unaccounted for but he bites his tongue, right now isn’t the time. Instead he just rubs Ashton’s thighs softly, and from the watery smile he receives he knows it’s the wiser choice.

Luke learns a lot about Ashton whilst the kettle boils. They talk about their dreams and worries, what keeps them up at night for several different reasons and Luke makes sure not to mention Ashton in his answers. They talk about the more simple things too; things that make Luke hide his face in the crook of Ashton’s neck whilst he laughs. They love the same bands, and Luke tries not to picture Ashton fucking him to a few of them in the back seat of his car like their second time. 

Because they’re young, and Luke cannot handle having Ashton’s thick thighs around his waist for that long without doing something, they end up in bed together an hour or two later. 

This time it’s gentle. Ashton kisses his skin, lips hovering over the bruises on his collarbones and he breathes over them like he’s whispering silent apologies for all the promises he’s broken, breathes in new promises which Luke hopes Ashton will always be there to renew.

When Ashton is eventually inside of him he sees stars, tiny constellations forming behind Ashton’s eyes and Luke swears he’s never seen something so pretty. The gentleness lasts another few minutes before Ashton flips him over and is back to fucking him into the mattress, but Luke really doesn’t mind all that much.

When they reach their high, Luke’s fingers clutching into the bed covers as tightly as Ashton’s grip into his hair, Luke doesn’t feel the usual dropping feeling in his stomach that comes along with knowing that their time together is over. He rides through his orgasm, breaths still coming out in short pants even when Ashton’s pulled out.

He turns over slowly, a slight nervousness that Ashton will distance himself again and that he’ll be left to deal with the remnants of a broken heart alone. Ashton’s watching him with a slightly cautious expression, but still tucks himself against Luke’s side. Luke smiles at that, because even though Ashton is shaking slightly when Luke presses a kiss to his forehead it’s a start. 

Ashton falls asleep before Luke, letting out quiet snores that Luke figures he should disapprove of but instead finds painfully adorable. He holds Ashton a little tighter when he feels his eye lids grow heavy, because he’s terrified that if he doesn’t then he’ll be gone by the morning. He lets his fingers dance over the exposed skin of Ashton’s tummy, feeling the older boy shiver slightly in his sleep and smiles. He still doesn’t know where they stand, there’s a lot left that they still need to figure out—Like how to help Ashton come out to his parents and friends, escape the loveless relationship he’s been hiding behind. He still needs to help Ashton fill that emptiness that hollows out the scared boy’s chest.  
He takes one last look at Ashton before letting himself fall asleep, matching the rise and fall of his chest with Ashton’s. 

When he wakes up in the morning he doesn’t remember right away until he feels soft curls tickling his chin. He presses a kiss to the tip of Ashton’s nose, a shamelessly affectionate gesture but it makes Ashton smile and that’s all Luke is bothered about. Ashton noses along Luke’s jawline slightly before he yawns quietly, burying his face back into Luke’s chest.  
“I like my coffee black like my soul.” He mumbles dramatically when breakfast is mentioned, and Luke has never felt so fond in his life. They’ve got a long way to go from here, but for now Luke is content with linking the dot-to-dot lines of Ashton’s freckles within the blanket walls that keep them safe.


End file.
